


Better

by eurydice72



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-21
Updated: 2013-07-21
Packaged: 2017-12-20 22:21:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/892566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eurydice72/pseuds/eurydice72
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Chosen, Faith gets a visitor after they’ve closed the Hellmouth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better

There were only two ways to block out the voices echoing through the tissue-thin motel walls – take a walk, or take a shower. Any other time, Faith would have opted for the former. She had a stake, she had the night, she didn’t need much else to get a good slay in.

But her bones ached from the fight in the Hellmouth, and the odds of running into someone who’d insist on coming with her too high. So she stood under the vicious spray, as scalding hot as she could get it, and pretended she hadn’t done this exact same thing, in nearly identical no-tell motels, a hundred times before.

The old life was so much like the new one, it wasn’t even worth laughing at the irony.

She ignored the steamed over mirror when she was done, wrapping the towel around her and escaping to the cooler bedroom. Though Buffy had offered to put her up with Robin, Faith had turned her down. She liked having space to call her own, but her official excuse was Robin needed his rest. It’s not like it wasn’t true. He’d died once already that day. Faith didn’t want to be around in case it happened again, though with Angel and his crew making doctor rounds, the odds of him surviving were better than not.

When the knock came at her door, she ignored it. 

She ignored the second one, too.

The third came long enough after the second to startle her for a split second, her nail polish brush jerking a fraction of an inch sideways. Bright scarlet striped the side of her big toe, and she swore under her breath as she stabbed the brush back into the bottle. Grabbing a tissue, she swiped the color away, then tossed it into the trashcan and marched to the door.

Somehow, seeing Wes on the other side deflated her immediate anger. She held the door wider in silent invitation, and he entered, just as wordlessly. She didn’t even remember she was still wearing only the damp towel until they were alone in the room, and his bright blue gaze swept down the length of her body.

“Buffy wasn’t entirely sure you’d require any assistance,” he said. When she opened her mouth to argue, he held up a hand to stop her. “I told her it didn’t matter.”

“Robin needs the house call more than I do.”

“Angel and the others are seeing to the rest of the girls.”

“No, Robin. Wood.” He still seemed unsure who she was talking about. “The only other piece of testosterone Buffy’s got in the stable that isn’t Xander or Giles.”

He frowned. “I thought I saw a young fellow with Dawn. Discussing…Pop-tarts?”

“Andrew. Trust me. Doesn’t count.”

Wesley set the small first aid kit he’d carried inside on the round table by the front window. “Regardless, I’m not here for them. How are you?”

She lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug, her wet hair pulling away from her skin. “Been worse.”

“Any injuries?”

“Nothing the shower didn’t fix.”

“Would you tell me even if there were?”

Her mouth twitched into a reluctant smile. “Would you really want me to?”

His response was a small shake of his head, though his own version of a smile curved his lips. He stepped closer, and brushed aside the strand of hair she’d dislodged from her shoulder. Fingertips glided across her skin, stealing the droplets that had stayed behind, but she didn’t delude herself it was anything but attention to the ugly scratch she’d received from a claw that couldn’t quite find its mark.

No matter how warm his hand was.

“How many of these do you have?” Wesley asked quietly.

“Somewhere between street fighter chic and Frankenstein.”

His eyes locked on hers. “Faith…”

A few weeks ago, she would have told him exactly what to do with his soft-spoken persistence. She didn’t need it. She’d burned that bridge, then blown up the ashes. But that had been before. Before he’d made sure she didn’t die saving Angel. Before he’d made a special trip from LA to see to a dozen broken girls he had no connection with. And one he did.

Her smile faded. “The only one shaking me up is on my back. The rest are nothing. No lie, Wes.”

He regarded her for moments she felt like the water he’d wiped from her skin, warm and tangible. “Then that’s the one I’ll tend to.”

As tempted as she was to drop the towel then and there, she didn’t want to sacrifice the ground she and Wes had gained, this tenuous truce he’d started to forge with their plan against the Beast. She turned her back to him, wondering if he understood how hard it was to do it, and crawled onto the bed. Her muscles twinged, but with her head low, there was no way Wes could see. She stretched on her stomach, loosened the towel from around her breasts, and pushed it down to the small of her back.

Wesley didn’t speak. With her head cradled on her folded arms, she couldn’t see him, but she felt the mattress shift, bowing beneath his weight. Every nerve remained poised, tense in anticipation, and she focused on her breathing to not think about the weakness she displayed.

In.

Feather touches grazed along the small of her back.

Out.

A pinch, a test of skin to skin, a sting more bearable than when she’d touched it in the shower.

In.

The weight of his knee against her hip dissipated as he reached for the first aid kit, leaving her alone and anxious, ready to bolt upright at the slightest provocation.

Out.

Heat washed along the cut that had flowed so red in the shower. She’d had to throw out the shirt she’d worn for the fight, though the jacket might be salvageable. The cut had finally stopped bleeding, but watching the scarlet ribbons swirl down the drain, gradually pinking before going clear, put her back in jail, back in Sunnydale, back on the road to the girl she’d hoped to leave behind.

“Relax.”

Her breath whooshed out on his single word command, no longer trapped in the memories. Faith opened her eyes, but Wes was just out of view, beyond the corners, conducting the business he’d come to do. All she had to do to see him was turn her head. She chose not to. She felt him, strong fingers binding the ragged edges of the cut together, exerting the necessary force to make her body comply to his will.

“I wish we’d been here to help,” he said, never raising his voice. 

“It wasn’t your fight.”

“Any fight involving friends is our fight.” His touch strayed away from the small of her back, upward, outward, lingering on more minuscule injuries she knew marred her skin. “You lost good people today.”

“But we walked away, and the bad guys are now a big hole in the ground. That’s what’s important, isn’t it?”

The affirmation she expected never came. Instead, she got caresses, one, two, too many, over abrasions and scratches she wanted to forget. His knuckles flirted with her sides, only to be brought under control again when he massaged the sore muscles along her spine. He pushed her wet hair out of his way, exposing her back completely to his purview, and she held her breath, waiting to see just how far he would take this, how close he would come.

“Yes.” 

The delayed response drifted down to join his hands, now tracing over the scars she bore around her neck. She didn’t think of them anymore, if she’d ever really thought of them at all. They were part and parcel for the whole slaying gig, and ultimately, proof she was still around to kick some ass. Under his devotion, though, each burned with a new life, deeper than the superficial puncture wounds they represented to everybody else.

“Wes…”

She wasn’t sure what to say. Buffy was the speech girl. Faith relied on actions to get her point across.

But she wasn’t sure what to do, either. Not this time.

The mattress shifted again, the edge of the towel pulling against her skin as Wesley rested his knee upon it. His hands braced on either side of her shoulder, and the light behind him dimmed as he blocked it out when he bent closer.

“Buffy did not lose all her good people today, though,” he said, the breath hot and gentle in her ear. His head turned a fraction, and then there was his mouth, firm and dry against her temple, the kiss both promise and praise. Silently, she counted the seconds it remained – one, two, three, four – and forced her eyes to stay open the entire time. “Well done, Faith.”

She didn’t move after he rose, or while he gathered the first aid supplies.

She didn’t exhale until after the door latched carefully behind him.


End file.
